


temptation is hard to resist

by visheretowrite



Series: sinners, tell me your secrets {saints, hide them all away} [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Character Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2017-08-28
Packaged: 2018-12-21 01:31:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11933520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/visheretowrite/pseuds/visheretowrite
Summary: or; the one where the pack is the seven deadly sins





	temptation is hard to resist

**Author's Note:**

  * For [writergirl8](https://archiveofourown.org/users/writergirl8/gifts).



> Anyone who knows me remotely knows that I am a huge fucking slut for character studies. I could read them for hours and hours and hours and never get tired, and I love writing them. Which is why I'm starting a character study series, where characters from more than one fandom will be studied as the seven deadly sins and the seven virtues. And because I'm a huge TW fan, I had to start with them. This is also dedicated to the awesome writergirl8, @rongasm on tumblr. She's one of the kindest people I have ever met, and always so eager to answer my questions and be kind. Her writing is phenomenal and I just adore her as a person. I hope she likes this fic, because I had the most fun time in the world writing it.

_i. gula (gluttony)_

 

_It is a sort of strange retribution, he thinks. That power, in the Hale family, was always coveted. That in the end, in the very very end, he falls prey to what had enticed his uncle so many years ago, what had caused the stench of burning flesh to fill his too heightened senses as the sirens blared past the classroom door. He runs and he runs and he runs for his sister, they collapse into each other and he registers that this was not an accident._

 

 _He bites his first teenager and the_ thrill _of the power rushing through his veins is a little too much to resist. So he does it again. And again. And before he can do it again, he is stopped. But that doesn’t change that he is an Alpha, a werewolf that has killed and killed and killed. There is a different sort of power like the kind that rushes under his fingers (he supposes, really claws) when he feels the life draining out of his uncle._

 

 _He thinks this is something almost out of a fairy tale. How_ is  _an Alpha’s power passed down anyways? He thinks is has something to do with blood. How the blood sprays as you finish the kill. How it coats your fingers in a way, staining it so deeply it can never be washed off. Maybe this is the way power is passed down, blood rusted fingernails and sliced open ribcages. Maybe it’s like (and here he wants to laugh) like the vampires. Everyone knows they don’t exist, of course. But a Hale knows better than anyone that all the myths hold truths. There is something dark in the act of consuming blood. Maybe power is transferred by the shedding of blood. It is._

 

 _The claws glow faintly in the dark, and he wants to throw up just at the sight of them. Power demands blood. Power, power,_ power _. He loved it, once upon a time. He_ craved _it, once upon a time. And this phrasing is so ironic, because it sounds like something out of a twisted fairytale. And then he chuckles again. Because everyone knows the fairy tales themselves (the original ones, carved from bone marrow and tears) are more twisted than the “twisted” ones. Power is passed through family. His uncle got power from being a Hale. He got the power from his uncle. And now the claws, the claws of his_ mother _, will let that power be stolen again._

 

 _Power does not give. It takes and takes and takes and takes. Derek Hale knows this better than anyone. He still craves power, (why wouldn’t he, under all of those claws and fur and super strength, he’s still only_ human _) but he knows that power is not safe with him. Power, he thinks, comes like the bite. Few will get it, even fewer can handle it well. Power demands a piece of you. And in the end, power does not remain. Power, like life, is fleeting. He learns what is important. He chooses something else over power._

 

_Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, we all go. From earth I came. To earth I will return._

_ii. ira (wrath)_

 

_The Argents have always been a little angry. There’s more than one type, she learns though, she as grows older. There is the cold anger, that her mother gives her when she see her sneaking out in San Francisco. There is the barely controlled anger that her father spits at his sister when she pisses him off, again. And then there is the inferno inside her, the kind that kicks at the inner part of her skin and explodes in her heart. As she matures, however, the inferno glows bright and hotter, blue flames licking at her heart. She is dark and light. Anger lives in a special hollow in her soul._

 

 _She has always been a little angry. Yes, she is kind, she is compassionate, and she is selfless. But she is also vengeful. (Hurricanes are named after people for a reason, right?) Vengeance must be given. And who better to give it than the shunned, tossed aside daughter of steel and bone? She is not just a lacrosse player’s girlfriend. She is not just the daughter of hunters. She is herself, and she will tear this world apart with her bare_ hands _. (Red’s always been her color anyways)_

 

 _She goes through a lot of anger in the time from arriving in this godforsaken time. Most of the anger is at herself. She has always prided herself on her intelligence, on her inability to be duped. She is strong. Until the truth is revealed. And the inferno that she has kept so carefully buried comes raging out again. And this is why it’s so hard to keep it contained when she finds out about her mother. She had never had an easy relationship with her mother, the world could attest to that. But, still. Her_ mother _. Strict, to the end. Protective, to the end._

 

_She releases the string, lets the arrow fly, and feels a pit settle in the pit of her stomach as the weapon sinks itself into the flesh of the boy (no, monster, she corrects) running in front of her. But this pit is warm, spreads a feeling of justice inside of her. Heaven and hell collide in her, and they will pay for what they have done. He stands beside her and eggs her on, encourages her, and the inferno comes again, but this time, it glows blue. Because she is nothing if not her parents’ daughter, her father’s furiosity and her mother’s calm, controlled anger, when those she loves are put in danger._

 

 _She later wonders if there is a sort of secret to surviving life like this, some secret. She feels the anger burst in her heart once more, but not at her friends, at those who are threatening them. She fights for them, she channels the anger into something useful. She would rather cut down a thousand monsters and have their blood on her hands than that of another person who fought to protect other. She would love for vengeance to be wrecked on those who have hurt them close to her. And it will only be sweeter if she is the one to give it. (this is why, she supposes, she finally_ dies _) Her anger blinds her and the sword sinks into her stomach. Allison Argent always knew that the anger in her would both be her saviour and downfall one day._

 

_Anger simmers, boils, and poisons. Anger frees, liberates, and reveals. I am anger._

 

_iii. luxuria (lust)_

 

 _He’s always been a good guy. He’s always been respectful. Desire courses through his veins, and he_ wants _. He longs for something more, for a days when screaming matches and slammed doors and broken glass and trips down the stairs were things that happened on TV shows, not in his own house, where he no longer feels safe. His own house. (that is a loss so awful nothing can fix it, a loss that cuts into his soul) How can a little boy no longer feel safe in his own house?_

 

 _He licks his dry, chapped lips as the he sits in the doctor’s office. It’s clinical, but with a nurse as a mother, he’s gotten used to time spent around antiseptic and beeping machines. It’s sort of comforting in a way; if he closes his eyes, he can almost imagine his mother is there, giving him one of her hugs that seems to make everything better. He looks up at the kind man who has just opened the door, offering him a genuine smile, and for the first time, he wonders if this is how a father smiles at his son. And he wants to know, more than_ anything _. So he takes the job._

 

 _Her skin is warm, and callused, (probably from releasing those arrows all the time, he thinks) fingers laced through his. The coach keeps yelling at him, and he resists the desire to pull up his hoodie and disappear into himself. But he hears her soft breathing behind him, and suddenly he wants something more. He wants her laugh. He wants that special smile saved for him. He wants her, all of her, messy and beautiful and_ human. _Desire for a life with her. (and later, he wants all these things with another girl too, who somehow manages to worm her way into his heart, like the vixen that she is)_

 

 _He is a man of few wants. He wants to keep this town safe. That does not mean he can. But for a moment, for a fleeting moment, he wants to die. He can’t separate whether  or not it’s the voice in his head or his own desire. The flare gives pain. The pain is a reminder of what he wants, and what he can’t have. Then the voice breaks through to him. And he realizes that what he wants, what he’s only ever really wanted, was his_ friends _. That they’re it. They’re all he could ever want._

 

 _Until he finds out about the library and the scaffolding. He questions everything. How could the one person he trusted so unequivocally, (so completely, so totally, his brother in every way that matters, in the only way that matters: love) do_ this _? And then the truth is revealed. And Scott McCall must take a step behind and think about what he really wants in life. Perfect people? Or does he want the person who has stuck behind him when no one else has and who was just trying to protect himself? (and it’s easy, so easy, to let himself be bound to his best friend, his brother again) There is something intangible, something_ deep _, between the two of them, something like coming from the same star at the beginning of everything._

 

_I want. I need. I can live without some things. Not without others._

 

_iv. vanagloria (vanity)_

 

 _He’s always been a little self conscious, a little more aware of his_ humanness _, even at the beginning, when werewolves and monsters were in old black and white movies. He’s small for his age, always has been, but he desperately hopes that he won’t always be. His best friend is another story. With dark eyes and a bright smile, people are still drawn to the boy with tan skin, rather than the pale one standing next to him, even if they are still both outcasts. He has always been painfully aware of his own shortcomings, of his own humanness. He hopes things will change as they get older, that people will see him, not look through him. (they don’t. Not for a while, at least)_

 

 _The feeling returns with a vengeance, when he spots his best friend doing amazing feats on the field, and he spots the girls all glancing his way. He feels_ awful _, sick to his stomach for the jealousy, but he strips off his shirt when he gets home and looks at himself in the mirror. Too pale, too many moles, and just too much of him. His brother is not like him anymore, and it only makes himself more aware of his failures, of his humanness. He is pale skin and quick witted words and intelligence. But he always wishes that he could be more._

 

 _He tells himself the the summer he spends working out is so that he can finally have a chance on the lacrosse field, like he did last year. His lie sickens him. He knows he’s doing this because some days he can’t bear to look himself in the mirror and see the same thing as last year. All he wants is something new. He knows he’s being selfish, that he shouldn’t be focusing on things as trivial as his looks, when his home could fall out from underneath his feet at any moment. But he does anyways. Because this is just another symbol of his humanness. He’ll never be selfless_ enough _._

 

 _Most of the time, he’s felt inferior because of his looks, and his skills. But this, this inferiority is a million times worse. Because now it’s a check on his kill list. Because now he’s done the one thing that his best friend was against. He’s stolen a life. He’s murdered a person. He has committed an unspeakable act. He faces him in the rain, the wrench in the other boy’s hand, and he_ swears _he feels his heart splintering in two. (he thought he knew everything about heartbreak, after his mother. He was wrong) He hates himself, he hates everything he has done, and this is when his_ humanness _comes roaring out. Because really, what can he do, anymore. He’s the human. (although they’re all truly human inside)_

 

_His insecurity doesn’t roar up much anymore. He only lets it writhe and gather when he visits her grave, and he has never hated himself as much as he does then. He should have been strong, more like his friend. Maybe then she wouldn’t have died. But Stiles Stilinksi is tired of feeling pity for himself, tired of the sad sad thoughts that plague his brain. He helped save someone. He should feel good about that. And he does._

 

_There is a difference between being enough, and trying. Most of us, me too, are the latter._

 

_v. avaritia (avarice)_

 

 _From the moment she was born, she has craved_ something _. What it is, she cannot tell always. She pretends it is pink rooms and tea parties with dolls, although a small, dark part of her knows this is not true. The feeling only goes away when her grandmother comes to visit and whispers stories in her ear, mostly the one about a sea maiden and a man, falling in love. Then, the churning desire for more ebbs away in her stomach, so much like the waves in the stories. (and she wonders when, like the rocks at the beach, she will be swept away too)_

 

_As she grows, she finds something that eases the ache, in the form of whispered stares and jealous looks. She revels in thier innocence. Only twelve years old and she rules this school, the entirety of the student body falls prostrate at her feet. And yet, there is something missing, something she needs. She wants more, more, more, and she does not know what of. The handsome, popular boy, with the startling blue eyes and blonde hair changing towards brown winks at her on the playground; she tosses back her famed red hair and stalks toward him, lips curled in a devilish smile. (she is heaven and hell)_

 

 _This craving, this desire, this_ greed _, can be given another, more innocent name. A thirst for knowledge, she supposes. She has always wanted to know more, about everything and everyone. She reads books and people effortlessly. She may act it, but there is no way she is stupid. She commands attention, thrives on it even. But as the days pass bye and she stuffs her tests underneath her books, twirls her hair around her fingers and plasters a vacant look in her eyes, she wonder. (want is different than greed)_

 

 _Greed overtakes her, almost chokes her right now. Everything goes back to the earth, so it is fitting, in a dark way, that the ground is stained with his blood. It’s too much. She had never the werewolf boy, not like she had loved her best friend, but it still hurts her to see him die. And now the greed for something else wraps sickly around her soul. She knows this is not what she really wants, that it is more the banshee side of her that craves the feels of blood between her fingers, smeared across tiled floors, dripped down mirrors. There is a part of her that craves_ death _, that is greedy for death._

 

 _She is trapped in her own mind right now, stuck in a limbo sort of world with another banshee, where everything is muted in scales of green, gray, and black, and she cannot discern reality from dream. (where she is, why would she ever want to?) She dreams of lives bettered, in a place where no one can touch her. And then_ he  _touched her, grips her head and jerks it to the side, and there is a breaking point in every human, where they become a little monstrous, and she reaches it. Lydia Martin_ Screams _. And the satisfying feeling that courses through her body when she sees is prone figure laid out on the ground, missing its head, is like a whole new type of greed._

 

_Greed is different than want. And may my greed be satisfied._

 

_vi. superbia (pride)_

 

 _There has always been a certain amount of pride in her family. (she is half Hale, after all) There has always been a certain amount of desire to prove herself. The first stirrings of pride come at 7 years old, when someone shoves her on the playground and calls her family poor. She bares her teeth, not yet sharpened into canines and brown eyes gleam with something more_ dangerous  _than any stick she can manage to find. She is protective, and she is prideful. She is hurt when people attack her._

 

 _She has spent approximately half her life human, and the other half of her life as a deranged animal, running through the woods. She still feels the licks of pride that eat at her from the inside out. She watches the other coyotes (before they are killed, of course) and licks her lips with her long tongue. She will succeed. (and she does) The first kill is messy, she wrestles with the animal for a few minutes before she finally manages to sink her teeth into its neck once more, blood spurting and coating her teeth. The way she eats it is even_ messier _, but she swallows the fur and meat down all the same. (she had something to prove, after all)_

 

 _There is more than one type of pride, she later learns, as the monsters come for her and she fights. There is the type of pride that is purely selfish, the kind she had on the playground far too long ago. And then there is the kind of pride she posses now, beaten and broke, Her friends_ need _her. And so she will not back down from a fight, even when she is broken. The rib that feels broken seems to cut through every breath she takes, but she shoves down the pain. She will fight until she dies, and she does not care how soon that is._

 

 _The pride roars itself up once more, when she is so sure of herself that she ignores the boy with the dark circles under his eyes and the sweet, soft smile he gives her. There is a certain amount of pride in all humans, but she’s cursed with more. She doesn’t trust the new boy, the one that was friends with her boys, long ago. (she knows better than anyone how time changes everything) Remnant of her time in the forest, where it was kill or be killed. She will succeed, and she will prove she is_ right _. Her pride is one of the last things she has left, one of the last pieces of her from her old life._

 

 _She swallows it down when she finds him in the forest, this man who is apparently her_ father _. Her real family consists of a two brothers and a queen, and the new kid. Her pride lets the words get stuck in her throat. He doesn’t deserve them, so why on earth should she say them to him? Why on earth would he be graced with the one word she reserved for someone else? She’s not smart, not like the rest of them, and she’s not ready for the toll that saying these words will require of her. But Malia Tate is nothing if not adaptable. So she chokes back her pride, for the first time in her life, and says the words. She calls the man in front of her her father. And she helps to save her friend._

 

_Pride can be a downfall or a saviour. I choose which one, and how to control it._

 

_vii. acedia (sloth)_

 

 _She has never been_ lazy _, in the true sense of the word. More of a hesitance to do things. She is shy, cannot easily make friends, cannot easily speak to new people. She takes a little bit of initiative, back in New york, and it pays off. Part of her wants to blame this on her father, and his flawless ability to embarrass her, but she can’t. She knows that she is not easy to approach, but she likes people, and she is kind. She is just not good at control. She is not good at innovative. There are worse things that she could be. (so much, much worse)_

 

 _Her hand trembles as she grips the sword, and she swears, dropping it on the pristine hardwood floor in her bedroom. The tip of the sword leaves a long gash in the shiny lacquer, and she covers it with a rug so that her parents won’t see. She has just found out what she is, and she hates it. She doesn’t want the responsibility, she doesn’t_ need the responsibility, _so why was it given to her? (why, why why)  She doesn’t want anything to do with this world, and she wants to stay away from it at all costs. Someone else will take care of it._

 

 _Later, she slashes the tip of her finger while she’s practicing, and the feeling returns. The blood drips down onto the carpet, perfectly crimson and round, and she grits her teeth. Now, she wants this life, she knows she needs to be a part of it, but what if she can’t take it? She wants to save lives, she wants to help, but_ can  _she? She does not want to fill their minds with a fantastical person, and fail later, so she thinks it would be better for everyone if she bowed out now. But her mother places the katana in her hands once more, and simply looks at her. And she bows her head, because she is nothing if not loyal. (she is loyal to her last breathe)_

 

 _The sand blows in her eyes, stinging painfully, and she squints, to keep the dust out. She knows why she is here. There is more than one type of laziness. And this is_ ineptitude _. She is weak, and she cannot control herself. She must learn how, and she must do well. If she is unable to save them, too slothlike to even put in the effort, than she is one of the worst people on the planet. She needs this. She needs to be able to control this. (dear god, she hopes that she can) She knows that she must work hard to do this, to save everyone around her. She will help herself. She will save herself. And she will save everyone else._

 

_This last time, she smiles, because she is not running away. She had come back, and she was proud of it. She left, because she had to find a way to save everyone. And she managed to get rid of him, banish him to a land where he could not hurt anyone ever again. And after what he’s done to her friends, she wants to do it a thousand times over (and hopes she can learn how). Kira Yukimura is not lazy. She will not stand by and let someone else do the work for her. She will figure out a way to save everyone, unorthodox, maybe, but she will still save them all. Her method will require time, however, and control. She still needs to learn control. So she leaves._

 

_Laziness is different from wrong. I work, and I work, and I work, and I can still be wrong._

 


End file.
